


The Redgrave Case

by chaya



Category: Dresden Files (TV)
Genre: M/M, magical sex pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:08:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaya/pseuds/chaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every other fandom gets some sex pollen. Shouldn't Dresden Files have its equivalent?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Redgrave Case

The biggest problem with the Redgrave case wasn't actually the _case_ so much as the cleaning up after it. The guy had turned out to be a fairly well-educated and well-off wizard type, practicing still at the ripe old age of sixty-something. It's because of this that after working with Murphy to close the case I had to work somewhat _against_ her to apprehend some pretty volatile stuff from the guy's basements. Theodore Redgrave, RIP. You left behind many explosions and more dried lungwort than I know what to do with.  
  
So getting this all out of his old house on the edge of town was an escapade in itself, but once I got it all back into the shop Bob was on me in seconds to start unpacking it.  
  
"The man had an almost limitless resource of money, and he never _retired_ from his work, Harry, are you listening? There must be thousands of dollars worth of herbs, artifacts, all sorts of-"  
  
"I know, Bob."  
  
He was giving me his ‘No, Harry, you really don’t at all’ looks – that was a look that always made for a good teeth-clenching.  
  
"I know. I do. It's more than just rosemary in there, but I gotta get some rest before I pass out on the floor. I've been going for sixteen hours and the whole battling evil thing kinda takes its toll after a while, so... jeez, Bob, what's got your panties in a twist?"  
  
And he just _had_ to give me that long-suffering look. "There could be _anything_ in there, and you're not even _curious_."  
  
"I'm curious. I'm very curious. I'm also very tired. Once I take care of the tired I'll take care of the curious. Do you remember tired? Sleepy? That whole-"  
  
And sometimes, I'll admit, I'm really pretty dumb. Everything will be going along peachy, spat-wise, until I realize I've crossed that shady little line between reminding a certain someone that they're dead and rubbing it their face.  
  
Bob's look had changed from a look to a _look_... maybe that'd make more sense if you'd lived with him for a decade or two... but anyways, he gave this curt little nod and made for the wall like he was going to go back to the labs and think about life, and how he didn't have it, and I was kicking myself already.  
  
"Bob, I didn't-"  
  
"I know you didn't."  
  
"C'mon, let's. Let's open these trunks."  
  
"You probably need your rest, Harry. They'll be there in the morning."  
  
He wasn't taking the peace offering, but I wanted to give it so bad at this point. "Yeah, but. Maybe some of it's going off, and we could save it if we get to it now... Redgrave was getting on in the years, you know, maybe he forgot what needs to have the expiration date checked more than every half-century, you know?"  
  
I knelt down and started jimmying the first lock open, one hand on the tools and the other gesturing the protective hexes away, and finally I could feel... or sense... Bob hovering over me, bent a little at the waist, giving in. Good.  
  
"Dusty," he remarked casually.  
  
"Yeah." I was sporting this stupid little smile and was really glad he couldn't see. "The guy needed a maid."  
  
The first case had pretty boring stuff, but it was always good to have a surplus of anything. The inside of the cases looked sort of lined with weird velvety stuff, and Bob started on about it maybe being like this one thing he saw in Peru where it's cloth that maintains temperature better than any modern appliance, which could explain why the lungwort was so fresh, and he got to rattle on and cool off while I nodded in the right places and put everything away. The labels were all in sanskrit, too, which Bob decided aloud meant the guy was both elitist and also kind of obsessive-compulsive. Fortunately, all this stuff was recognizable on sight, so it was easy without the labels anyway.  
  
It kinda felt like looting, but it also kinda felt like I was saving huge bucks on everything from aconite to wormwood.  
  
So all was good until about the end of the second crate, where the yawning started setting in, but I was almost done with the hellebore and I'd already upturned the entire lab opening all the bottles and everything to get everything out of the crates and into the new digs. Bob was giving me a concerned look, and every now and again he'd say something like 'Wrong jar' or 'You don't want to put that with that'.  
  
"A nap wouldn't hurt," he wheedled. I smiled tiredly. We'd switched places on this argument now.  
  
"There's only a crate left," I reminded him.  
  
"Yes, but as we've gone through every dull herb on the planet the third one's bound to be the one with the ready-mades, which means they're far more volatile than the leaves or roots you've been rustling around so far. Harry, go to _bed_."  
  
And I'm sort of used to that firm voice in that baritone, and what it kinda does to me, but I'm also used to shaking it off and shoving it to the back of my mind. Even when I'm tired.  
  
~

  
"Almost done."  
  
"You're stubborn."  
  
"You're not helping. C'mon." The hexes were harder, but not so hard that I needed to spend a good ten minutes on them like I did. Bob stood patiently by my side, keeping the concerned mutterings at bay because he knew I'd just waste breath saying I'm fine, just fine. Bob's good like that.  
  
So we got through anti-aging potions, and love potions, but most of them were this weird convoluted-type recipe that I could never tell by sight, so I was holding every single one up to the light as Bob made thoughtful 'hmm'ing noises until he went 'ah, I _see_ now,' and I'd get the sharpie to write its name in English over the sanskrit.  
  
"He must have had some allergy to certain herbs, calling for avoidance of many common recipes and forcing him to find alternatives such as these..."  
  
"Are they any good?"  
  
"Hmm? Oh, I'm sure they'll work well enough. The substitutes are all quite clever, and most of them quite expensive."  
  
"Expensive is good, I guess." I rubbed a hand across my face and set the calming brew down. What I needed was coffee, but if I headed to the kitchen I'd remind Bob that I was tired at all, and he'd nag me to just go to bed. If I stayed up just a few more hours he'd forget entirely about the whole dead comment. I knew him. Just a little longer with his mind on a puzzle like sanskrit and weird herbal substitutes and he'd be his old self again.  
  
"Harry. _Harry._ "  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Focus. You almost dropped that."  
  
"Oh." I looked down at my hand. "Sorry. Just."  
  
He sighed behind me. "You're worn out."  
  
"I'm _fine_ , alright, I just-"  
  
And in the whirling-around-to-glare-at-him process, I lost the damn bottle right out of my hand. Flung to the four winds, bounces off one of the lower racks, crashes onto the floor with an ugly red plume of fine powder and mystical god knows what. The glass shards were the least of my worries, because I was pretty sure that stuff had just gotten into the _air_.  
  
"Uh. Shit. Shit. Bob, is it noxious? Is it poison?"  
  
Bob was already on it, rushing over and sticking his head into the cloud. I knew he didn't breathe, but something in me still twitched at seeing him so close to something harmful. I know, it makes no sense.  
  
"Back away, Harry." He said it in that painfully calm voice that meant something was going down, so I backstepped towards the door but of course I hit the step with the back of my heel, and I'm tripping backwards and hitting my head on the reinforced steel and out for the count, almost before I hear the yelling.  
  
"Harry! _Harry!_ Wake up! Wake _up!_ "  
  
A liiiittle too late for that.

  
~

 

Waking up was sort of weird. Out of all the things you get used to living with a ghost, waking up with him right up in your face isn't one of them.  
  
I flinched back. "Jeez, Bob." He'd kind of startled me, but the scared feeling wasn't really wearing off like it should. I sat up straighter and stared at him. "What... what?"  
  
His eyes were seriously big. "Harry, I need you to focus on being calm."  
  
"Calm?" I didn't feel like being calm. I felt like being scattered all over the place, confused and worried and maybe even scared still, which was weird... which probably meant it was really a good idea to stay calm right now. Actually. "The mixture..."  
  
He finished the sentence right on cue. "...is some form of mood-altering substance. I'd guess it's an amplifier."  
  
Wouldn't be the first time. I breathed deep. "So focus on something happy." Better to be happy than worried. Worried would grow to paranoid. Happy, magicked out of proportion, just grows to... more happy. Like the happiest drunk ever. It's a better option than losing all my hair from stress inside of forty minutes.  
  
"Uh. Right." I cleared my throat. "In that case: Bob."  
  
"Yes, Harry?" He was leaning in now, sort of half-kneeling half-not as he tried to check my pupils or something. I was doing the deep-breath slow-going thing as I picked myself up off the floor. Bob got up too.  
  
I plunged forward. "You've always been a good friend to me. You're annoying sometimes, but you're always dependable."  
  
He picked up on it. "And the same to you. Annoying but undeniably endearing. I'm glad we're partners in all this." He smiled, sealing the deal.  
  
We both knew it was sort of staged, that we said it to smoothe me out, but it was also sort of nice because of how easy it came to us, because it was true, and, well. What I hadn't counted on - he hadn't either, I'd expect - was for me to be feeling something other than camaraderie when he gave me that big smile. He'd stood up with me and ended up pretty close, and I've always sort of been a sucker for that particular 'We're sharing a secret' grin.  
  
I wasn't feeling happy, _exactly_.  
  
"Oh, shit."  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
The grin was already melting away, but it was too late. I was squinting my eyes shut and trying to go back to calmly back away from the Bob Really Sort of Makes Me Question My Sexuality Sometimes train of thought, but I couldn't derail it.  
  
Now, usually I was good at this, brushing it off. I've been doing it for more years than I care to number, and eventually you get this stuff down to a science. 'It's a teacher/student thing,' I usually went with, 'and since I was deprived of the leggy, tweed-jacket, short-skirted brunette with pencils keeping her hair up kind of schoolteacher, my libido went towards the ghost in the cravat instead, way back when.'  
  
But man, that tired old excuse was _not_ working this time.  
  
"Harry, talk to me."  
  
I couldn't. Bob had been tangible, _once_. Just once. Just long enough to grab me by my jacket and shove me against a wall when he first saw me, and that memory had stayed in wet dreams only for the past month or so... but now, _damn_. My brain was replaying that scene with a new ending. The jacket came off this time. Lots of clothes came off.  
  
"Harry, you are decidedly _not_ happy. What's going on? How can I help?"  
  
I ran my hand over my face. "Help, no, no you don't wanna help this, Bob, maybe you should..." Damn, I could already feel my jeans going towards the not-fitting stage. "...this'll ride itself out, right? This amplifying-ness? In a few minutes?"  
  
"More like hours." That voice. That _voice_. "Harry, whatever it is, if you're stuck on it just run with it. Fighting it is more likely to causeinter-cranial hemorrhaging than actually changing the feeling."  
  
Feeling. Yeah, I remember feeling. Eyes shut tighter now...  
  
"Harry, try and focus if you can."  
  
Focusing. Definitely focusing on his smell. He had a great one, I miss it; it was this musk-and-library-dust sort of scent with magic all twined around it. That old, archaic-type stuff that makes other wizards' hair stand on end. I shivered.  
  
"Harry, can you even hear me?"  
  
"Too well." And then there was that whole gagging thing. Usually I'm pretty vanilla, but something about it was just peachy with me. I never forgot the feeling of being tied up in a _morgue_ of all places with a scarf-gag and Bob's eyes on me, cold as they were. Smack me around if you want, Bob, just so long as you're _touching_ me, _please_....  
  
I turned for my room. "Bob, get in your skull."  
  
He growled. "I most certainly will _not_. You need someone to see you through this."  
  
I panted. "I don't."  
  
"This is like a bad trip gone tunnel-visioned. Is it despair? Rejection? What is it?"  
  
"Bob, just...." And I really should have ordered him to go away, I _could_ have, except somehow I knew that'd lead to a headache beyond any migrane I'd had before. It was already looming on the edges of my consciousness, and it didn't seem to acknowledge the fact that I couldn't jump this guy's bones like it wanted me to if _I_ wanted to.  
  
Which I did, but that's not the point.  
  
He was edging in again. He didn't even need the scent - the presence was enough to make my heart race like I've run seven city blocks. "Can we talk about your breathing, Harry?"  
  
I headed for the bedroom. He was already following me. "No, we can't."  
  
Bob tiptoed around me to get in my face. "Because it's uneven, startlingly so, and your pupils have leapt to great new sizes that I don't like the look of..." He trailed off, still backstepping as I made my beeline for my room, where I could take care of this in peace. But he finally went still and I had to go still before I ran through him. Last thing I needed.  
  
"What, Bob?"  
  
He was staring at me with those icy blues. "God damn it, Harry." He knew.  
  
"Listen, I-"  
  
"You're _aroused_."  
  
My stomach plummeted. My brain, however, was on fire. _Yes, he knows now, now he can consent and come with you to the bed where you can_ \- "Sh-shut up, Bob."  
  
"That's your retort? Shut up? Harry, where did this even _come_ fr-"  
  
"Don't say that word right now, Bob."  
  
Bob blinked. "...my apologies."  
  
He seemed to be either frozen in place or giving up. Maybe both. Good. I made great time in getting to the bedroom, and shut the door - more of a gesture than anything else, with a ghost. I'll admit, I spent the next ten or thirty seconds trying to get my shaking hands to undo my damn fly.  
  
I'd never been this out of it before. I'd been drunk, I'd been lovesick, I'd been both, but this was some new breed of head-over-heels breathtaking mindblowing _lust_ thing. My erection was getting painful, but the gel in the drawer was just too far away to reach for.  
  
The belt wouldn't come off entirely, but it didn't matter - it dangled on the two back loops and the buckle knocked against the wall as I leaned back and shoved my hand in, just a squeeze, just enough to keep myself happy without finally giving in to (soberly) jacking off to the thought of -  
  
" _Bob._ " I couldn't help myself. I wasn't drunk, but for whatever reason I definitely couldn't shut up. " _S-stars_ and... st... fuck..." All I could do was start to pump my fist and hope he'd wandered too far away to hear.  
  
Where _was_ Bob? I knew he hadn't gone to his skull, because I'd been fool enough to leave it in here for 'safe-keeping' after the whole 'near loss in the Abyss' thing, so he must be out there, just...  
  
...was he thinking about me? Did he know how long this had been going on?  
  
Another surge of heat hit my stomach at that, shooting straight down. I yanked the jeans down lower to the edges of my hips and shivered. My thumb played over the tip as the image burned itself into my mind's eye - every girl I'd taken home, every night I'd spent with myself and my hand under the sheets: Bob breaking all promises and laws of decency to listen in. No, not listen, _watch_ , maybe giving himself a hand just like I was doing then... doing now...  
  
" _Bob_..."  
  
I heard his voice on the other side of the door. I moaned. "What?"  
  
He rasied his voice. "I _said_ , do you need anything."  
  
I laughed hollowly, shallowly, helpless against it. "This is embarassing... enough... without..."  
  
"Would it help if I came in there and-"  
  
" _Bob_ , I'm kind of busy right..." Talking coherently was getting harder. I curled my fingers tight around the base and rocked into the strokes. Doing this after several beers in the dead of night was one thing, but Bob was _awake_ and he _knew_ and -  
  
"I'm coming in."  
  
And he did, way faster than I could zip up or yank the end of my shirt down to cover my hard-on. He just side-stepped through the door, just like that, hands linked behind him and looking me over with that impossible-to-read stare.  
  
"Harry, listen to me."  
  
"B-Bob, I'm sorry, but-"  
  
"I want you too. Now get on the bed."  
  
I was floored. He kept standing there like he expected this from the start, waiting for me to huff and pant blearily as I stared and then blinked hard, trying to stay oriented. My damn hands were stilled around my jeans. He gave me a good five seconds before talking again.  
  
"I mean it."  
  
"Which part do you m-"  
  
"Both. Now get on the bed and listen to me."  
  
And like a good student, I stumbled back until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the mattress. I sat and stared. And finally, I noticed his eyes were looking a little big too.  
  
He wasn't kidding, was he?  
  
"Good. Get the shoes off. Socks, jeans, all of it." Still by the door, Bob raised his eyebrows. " _Quickly_."  
  
That was the same voice he used to teach with. My erection was taking notice of this, but as much as I wanted to jerk off at the moment, I was busy yanking my jeans down and pulling my Henley up over my head. It was a lucky thing I was too fargone at this point to start getting shy. I was just so thrilled to have him in the _room_ now that I'd do whatever he wanted.  
  
"Good." The baritone was thrumming in my head, sending waves through me. I licked my lips and bit back a sigh. "Now lay back and get to it. Give in."  
  
My eyes flicked down my chest, past my hard-on, back up to him. "...are you sure?"  
  
"Very."  
  
That was enough. My hand went back to work, going slow before I realized I just didn't have the patience for that right now. What killed me was I couldn't help from opening my eyes bit by bit, staring openly at Bob as he watched me from across the room. The eye contact was... sort of indescribable, but I kind of felt like a rat might if it stared right on back at the alley cat.  
  
He canted his head. "How do you feel, Harry?"  
  
"Like..." My mind blanked. "Like you're the moon. And I'm the tide. Lead on."  
  
He stared at me a moment. "You are such a woman at the most inopportune times."  
  
I laughed breathlessly. "I plead the fifth. And blame the fumes."  
  
Which was about the last lucid thing I said, because another wave of _something_ hit me until I gripped myself harder and arched off the bed. "Ghhh." The migraine was getting blessedly replaced with a pleasant warmth. I shivered again, stretching out a little further on the sheets. "Bob..."  
  
He stepped closer, and that made it better. "C-closer?" I asked. He did me one better, pausing a minute before moving forward and joining me on the bed, hands-and-knees right above me. I could just lean up and 'touch' him, if I wanted to, and it turned the want into a headrush that made me shake. "G-God."  
  
"Hardly." He smiled down at me, almost nose-to-nose. "And if I get to see you so prone and vulnerable in _my_ name, Harry, I feel it's only fair that I expose myself to you a little."  
  
My hard-on twitched in my hand. "Oh?"  
  
"Yes, 'oh'." He smiled again, that sly little we're-sharing-something grin and I was done for. Speechless, shivering, hand moving faster and harder as I stared up at his face. That's when he really started talking.  
  
"I _do_ want you back, Harry. I've wanted you perhaps as long as you've wanted me. Maybe longer. All the hidden looks you give me late at night, when you think I don't notice or I'm too distracted? I notice. I remember every single time. And you've never seemed _bothered_ when I touch you, move through you... you seem something quite else..." He got closer still. I was shaking. "Every time you've come home from the bars and you're too drunk not to call my name when you come in the bedroom? I hear you. I want to call _back._ "  
  
A noise escaped from the back of my throat. He chuckled and kept going. "After all those nights, I pretend the next morning that I never heard you. Perhaps, I thought, it was a drunken folly and only that... perhaps your fascination with my state didn't end in the classroom, and that those were looks of wonder that I was simply misinterpreting."  
  
"I'm glad I haven't been the only one with my mind in the _gutter_ , Harry. My own feelings for you haven't been platonic for quite some time."  
  
He wet his lips. "When I was alive, and I _felt_ you in my hands, finally _smelled_ you... I wanted to fuck you right up against that wall."  
  
Bob thrust his hand over mine, through it, and I bucked up into the feeling, throwing my head back; I lost it. Everytime he'd walked through me, brushed past me, accidentally or purposefully given any contact - that wasn't the _same_ as having it all concentrated in one. Specific. Place. That was already _screaming_ out for any and all contact. _Especially_ his.  
  
I came, yelling out his name just like he'd said and gripping the sheets with my free hand. There was nothing like having him right above me, eyes locked on mine as the orgasm coursed through me hard and fast.  
  
I fell back onto the bed, boneless and exhausted, and when I passed out he was smiling.

  
~  


  
Waking up _this_ time was sticky and cold - I'd managed to lose consciousness completely naked with nothing whatsoever to cover me from the usual drafts of the room - but I felt steeped in enough afterglow that I didn't really mind. I got up, stumbled a little, stretched, went to the bathroom, and was halfway through showering off before I remembered why I was covered in come in the first place.  
  
Oh, fuck.  
  
"Fuck, fuck..." I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead and tried to figure out if I was still under the influence of whatever the hell that stuff was. I felt monumentally like shit, but I had a sinking suspicion that that was all me. No magic. Just the genuine feeling of being an ass. Of jerking off about Bob, in _front_ of Bob...  
  
... _beneath_ Bob...  
  
I turned the water to cold for a few minutes before shutting it off entirely and stepping out to towel off. I was shaking again. The water had nothing to do with it - I'd possibly gone and lost my only damn friend in the world because of some ridiculous feelings I couldn't even explain. I'd kept all that tamped _down_ until now, and suddenly some noxious powder has to come along and ruin everything?  
  
I went back to my room and started pulling my old clothes back on, but they reeked of sex. They had no reason to smell _that_ much, but all I could do was groan in frustration and throw them in the laundry bin and hunt for some new jeans.  
  
Hopefully before I ran into Bob.  
  
What was I gonna say?  
  
"Hey Bob, nice morning, huh? Listen, about last night and the whole crush thing. That was just a... well, let's forget about it." Even in rehearsing to myself as I looked for a clean Henley, I couldn't get the words right. "Morning, Bob. I'm not gay. ... shit."  
  
I left off with shoes and socks and just paced in front of the mirror for a few minutes. I didn't look any different... my hair was crazier than usual. I killed time trying to get it to settle down. Some sort of panic attack wouldn't help me right now, and I knew that. What I needed to do with get calm and then get everything back to normal. Maybe Bob was already writing it off as some freak thing. In our line of work, lots of crazy stuff happens all the time. One time when I was fourteen, I accidentally turned all the furniture in the room into ice. Not just ice, though, the kind that's already beginning to melt and go slushy, and if Bob hadn't gone and distracted Uncle Justin while I hunted around for a counterspell I could've been grounded for at least a....  
  
...oh man, I really could not lose Bob.  
  
"Harry," all of a sudden, "someone's at the door."  
  
I jumped about a foot and then raced down the stairs, stumbling like an idiot on the last step. Of _course_ I'd slept in, of _course_ I was late opening shop. Some poor guy was tapping at the window pane, one eye on me and the other on the hours on the door as he double-checked. No, guy, you're not wrong, I just overslept because I ODed on magic ecstasy and jerked off in front of my ghost. My bad.  
  
"Are you Harry Dresden?" He's shouldering his way in, as quick as he can as if somebody's on his tail. I probably look just as nervous, peering around to see if Bob's anywhere in sight. Is he not gonna talk to me, other than telling me when someone's at the door? Not like it's weird for him to stay hidden when there's company, just that paranoia tends to blow these things out of proportion...  
  
"...and so then she just turned around and her eyes were _all white_ like she was possessed or something, and screamed some gibberish and then fell down! And when she got up she said she'd been haunted by this demon thing for like a week now and needed this medallion thing, and..."  
  
I didn't have time for this. "And the medallion's expensive, she says?" I interrupted. He was already nodding.  
  
"Thousands. I was hoping you..."  
  
"Had one for cheaper, since she's asking you to pay for half of it. Listen, she's short and brown-haired, right?"  
  
His eyes lit up. "How'd you know?"  
  
"Because she's been conning boyfriends since last June and a lot of 'em have come to me looking for a cheaper cure. Listen, break up with the girl and don't listen to any of her magic stuff. She told the last guy she was a werewolf."  
  
"But she _isn't_ a werewolf," he said cautiously.  
  
"No. She isn't. Just a con girl."  
  
"But I think I love her."  
  
"Follow your heart if you want, buddy, just keep a lock on the wallet. Seeya. Good luck. No charge."  
  
"Th-thanks!"  
  
I shut the door after him and breathed out. Poor guy. That chick was probably looting his house right then.  
  
"All clear," I called, not really thinking that this might prompt Bob to actually, you know, come out.  
  
But there he was, stepping out from the hallway. He looked the same as always, but I could've sworn I'd gotten over the whole intimidated-by-the-ghost thing way back when I was a kid. "Bridget's at it again, I heard?" He sounded so _calm_.  
  
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm starting to think I should give Murphy a profile or something."  
  
He nodded. "All short brunettes in the greater Chicago area..."  
  
I grinned. "Never know. One of the johns might've actually caught her real name."  
  
"Are you back on speaking terms with Murphy, by the way?"  
  
"I think so. Better to ask her, really." This was probably the best opening I was going to get. "Hey, speaking of, uh, speaking terms."  
  
He looked at me inquisitively, the absolute picture of serenity. It was unnerving as all hell.  
  
"I'm just, uh, glad we're still... on them," I finished.  
  
Bob shrugged gently and paused. "I don't see why we _wouldn't_ be," he finally said.  
  
Really? "Really?"  
  
This seemed to exasperate him a little. Or maybe that whole picture of serenity thing had been a bit of a sham. "If you're referring to the events that took place last night, I don't see why I should be _upset_ , especially against _you_ , as you seem to expect me to be. I think we both..." He seemed to lose track of the thought, and finished with another shrug.  
  
"You aren't... I mean, it wasn't me _exactly_ , doing all that, but it also sort of completely _was_ , Bob."  
  
He inclined his head. "I realize that."  
  
"And I mean..." I leaned against the door. This wasn't getting where I need it to go. "I don't really get what happened, part of it, but I know that I sort of had to run with it if I didn't want-"  
  
"-the migraine of the millennia-"  
  
"-yeah, and I sort of got stuck on..."  
  
"...one particular emotion, as is the purpose of the concoction you spilled..."  
  
...yeah, and I. I didn't." I scrubbed my hands over my face. It woke me up a little more and was a great excuse to break eye contact. "I didn't want you to, um, find out this way. Not. Not that I ever thought to myself, 'Geez, I hope Bob doesn't find out through some freak emotion extract accident,' that wasn't exactly on my list of things to avoid, maybe it should've been considering what a weird and stupidly unpredictable life I've set up for my-"  
  
"-you're babbling."  
  
"...yeah, I am." I swallowed. "Anyway. Uh. Thanks for, you know, putting up with the whole... ordeal, and playing along, and saving me from my brain imploding or something, that must've been kinda-"  
  
" _Harry._ "  
  
"...Bob?" He didn't look happy.  
  
"You thought I had put on some kind of _show_ for you?"  
  
I swallowed. "The... the thought had crossed my mind."  
  
There was a pause, and then he nodded and looked at the floor. "Harry," he said quietly, "you utter idiot."  
  
He glared at me, and I just sort of stared back, and finally he just stepped forward until he was right in my face and I swore I could almost feel his breath on my face.  
  
"I did _not_ ," he enunciated, "in _any_ way mislead you last night. I said what I did in the interests of helping you get through your predicament, but that doesn't mean what I said was not _true_."  
  
This wasn't hitting me. "So what you're saying is you're.... that you like me back. _Like_ me."  
  
Bob sighed. "If you want to be very primary school about it, then yes, Harry, precisely."  
  
My heart was already speeding up. Even if my head was being a little slow processing this, the rest of me was already celebrating the news in a fit of adrenaline and nerves.  
  
"You don't need to look so terrified, you know." He tilted his head a little, trying to catch my eye. He was smiling a little, just a little. It was that secret one again, that tiny little only-for-you one. I was falling all over again, and hard.  
  
"I'm fine, Bob, I just." Gathering my courage, I grinned back. "I'm wondering if we could do that all again sometime."  
  
His eyes were on the verge of twinkling, and that smile was only getting bigger. "Sans airborne magicks?" He asked innocently.  
  
I couldn't help from laughing. "Yeah, I was thinking I could do without that, you know, next time."  
  
He was chuckling with me. "I agree."  
  
"And the time after that..." I continued, stepped a little closer. His eyes got bigger. "...and after that..."  
  
"Christ, Harry. Lock the door again."


End file.
